I am really beginning to get angry at our internet. I've had to reset the router/modem literally three times in the last twenty minutes, and--- yeah, it just went down again. Grrr. I can type without internet, I'll fix it when I need to post.

For some reason I felt like I had something more productive to post about, but now that I stop to think about it, I'm pretty sure all I wanted to do was gush about baking crackers. It's so fun! They're delicious! Super-addicting to eat, and undoubtedly way cheaper than it would be to buy crackers that are this delicious, and I'm sure way freaking healthier. I've been baking a lot of flatbreads lately, since I've discovered I like having savory, starchy things to munch on. I binged on muffins for a week or so, then flatbread, now crackers. (I feel less guilty about eating these than the cookies I'd probably otherwise be making.)

Since I didn't have to work today, I figured I'd get a jump-start on my Superbowl cooking. (I work tomorrow, and when I get home, Tom will probably be working on his wings. My kitchen is oh god not REMOTELY big enough for two people. Tom and I trip over each other in the dining room area just getting coffee in the morning. That, and he and I have very different approaches to cooking, and would probably go crazy watching each other.)

Our menu:
Tom:
-Mahogany Chicken Wings, because he wants to try something different
-Possibly pizza
-Probably something alcoholic, which I'm leaving at his discretion (since anything I picked out would undoubtedly not be manly enough to suit football)
Melissa:
-Cheese Triangles
-Mexican Meatballs
-Carrot Dip, which is rather a misleading name, given that its main attractions are soy sauce and horseradish
-Spicy Polenta Cheese Crackers and
-Olive Oil Crackers to go with the dip, along with some Sunchips I picked up today, carrots and celery
-chocolate chip cookies if I feel ambitious tomorrow

I am fully aware that this is waaaay the heck too much food for two people. BUT, Tom is a boy, and thus will eat more than expected, no matter what I expect. Also, this way I might actually have leftovers for my lunches next week. :)

I just finished the meatballs, and they're not exactly spectacular. Yummy, but not like, OMGAmAzInG!!1! (Cooking people!!! Does anyone know how to get meatballs to actually STAY round through the baking process??) I have a hunch they'll get better once they've soaked up their sauce for a day or so though. Also, I did a bit of substituting, aaand I also need to learn to remember that Better Homes and Gardens' recipes are always a bit on the bland side. I also need to figure out what kind of peppers I wound up using, I couldn't find the chipotle peppers in adobe sauce the recipe called for... and Quality Markets sucks at labeling the hot peppers in their produce section. I have no idea what I used, but they were very hot, and I threw some Adobo seasoning in with them. So thanks to that, and the fact that I fail at blending things, my sauce has a totally different consistency.

BLENDING! omfg. I officially give up. We do, in fact, own a blender. It is Tom's, that his parents apparently got him in high school because he's a food-spazz and was on some kind of blendable-food binge at the time. anyway. I *very* rarely use electric things when I'm cooking. I haven't used an electric mixer in I don't even know how long - years ago, I think there were two separate instances where one started smoking while I was using it, and I finally reached the conclusion that my own arm was stronger than one of those silly things. Also, it makes me happier when I've done everything that went into something I cooked by hand, whether it's chopping veggies or mixing dough.

So, the blender. I was working on the polenta-cheese crackers, and when I first looked up the recipe, had somehow missed the fact that I was supposed to use a blender to get everything mixed up properly. (Normally, that will make me skip over a recipe.) Now, admitedly, I may very well have gotten the wrong kind of polenta. I had no idea what it was when I went to the store (usually I look these things up online first, but made the mistake of not doing so today), but while I was poking through the (ever-larger!) section of organic veggies, VOILA! there was a little cylinder of what proclaimed itself to be "TRADITIONAL POLENTA". Happily surprised to find something obscure in my friendly - but small - Quality, I pounced on it. When I got it home and poked open the package, I found a rather squishy thing inside... kind of tofu-like consistency, only, made up of cornmeal bits. So, I chopped it into little chunks, then threw it into the blender with some other ingredients. I studied the gazillion little buttons on the blender for a minute (remember, I like *never* use these things), and pushed one.

WHAT DO YOU KNOW, but thirty seconds later, I was smelling the oddly familiar scent of overheated, smoking plastic appliance. I turned it off, poked at it, turned it on, turned it off again when I saw more smoke tendrils, poked at it some more...

Eventually I discovered that it actually *was* blending the polenta chunks - but they were getting smooshed into new chunks of polenta down around the blender's blades. So after like twenty minutes of wasted effort on something which is SUPPOSED to make my life more convenient... I grabbed a knife, and chopped up the polenta even smaller, then just sat down and took a fork and the strength of my own arm to the mess for like ten minutes. Added everything else I was supposed to, and mixed *that* for another 10, 15, I don't even know how many minutes, trying to get it to the soft dough stage anyone else's blender would have gotten it to.

...uh, in the end, I still had a ridiculously sloppy wet pile of goo instead of slightly-tacky dough. I threw it aside for a bit while I cooked my other crackers. When I came back to it, it was still a big puddle, sooooo... I added some more flour. And then some more. And then, oh look, some more!

Oddly enough, in the end, they came out just fine. I just kept adding flour all along, until it resembled normal dough when I rolled it out. They taste delicious. :)


The other cracker recipe went off without a hitch, and I will *so* make them again (and again and again, knowing me). Super-simple to make, and I had a freaking field day putting toppings on them. I did a few with just some salt, but the rest all have some combination of salt, pepper, cayenne, paprika, oregano, some random Italian-ish seasoning I had on hand, an Herbs de Provence mix, Zahtar (both of which Mom got me awhile back - Zahtar is *awesome* with rice and curries, and really anything savory), I don't even remember what else. They're not pretty to look at (I think I'll cut them out properly next time, rather than leave it to whatever my rolling pin decides to make of them), but they are *delicious*. And addicting. I'm going to have to hide them not only from Tom, but from myself, until Sunday.


I have a sneaky suspicion there is either onion or hot pepper lingering on my fingers, and whatever it is, is making my eyes very angry. Also, I burned a finger, which needs some more cold water on it about now. (You'd really think I'd be done with burning myself, but pretty much *every* time I have a cooking day, I burn one. sigh.)

OH LOOK MY INTERNET IS GONE. grumble.